Syrus’s POVSyrus stayed up in bed, unable to sleep. He had different and conflicting thought running through his mind. He would be lying to himself if he did not say he was confused and worried.Not about Vivian, but about Georgia.Not that Syrus was not worried about Vivian, because till now, he still hadn’t heard anything from her, seen her or even know where she was, although he still had the feeling that she was holed up in her father’s house and hiding, and not that he wasn’t confused about the whole situation with Vivian’s silence and absence, but he just wasn’t consumed with it for now.Syrus’s recent trouble was Georgia.First of all, he was still regretting his actions of sleeping with her. Syrus was regretting it, not out of loyalty for Vivian, because she was also being unfaithful to him, but because he hadn’t decided yet that he wanted to start something with Georgia. Syrus had barely gotten out of a divorce, and the last thing he wanted right now was to get into another
Vivian’s POVThe morning began with a busy routine, unexpectedly. That morning, customers had trooped in like bees to a flower, and it had been the first time since I got here that this was happening.“Our tables are all occupied,” Jane whispered behind me happily. I startled, because I hadn’t seen or heard her walk up to me. I didn’t even know that she was also watched at the wonderment of it. We had served almost all of the coffees in the shop that morning, and it wasn’t even 10am yet. “Oh, yes,” I whispered in return and kept quiet after I had recovered from my shock. Then I faced the small crowd that had gathered in the shop, ignoring Jane.She had slept off in my room the other night after we talked about our relationships and how it ended deeply. Actually, she had begun to cry profusely about Ted leaving her, and I had consoled her until she fell asleep, but by morning, I had returned to giving her my cold shoulders. I wanted her to still know that I did not want the so-called f
Vivian’s POV“Well, you would have to get there to find out,” had been Leo’s wife’s response to my question.As I got dressed to leave the room that day for my antenatal registration, I reminisced on her response. She gave me a note to her cousin, so that it be easier for me when I got there, and she also promised to call him on my behalf and inform him that I was coming. “I just hope and pray that they are not as strict and formal as the last hospital I used,” I said to myself. “Otherwise, you would be toast, Vivian,” I told myself.The last thing I needed right now was to get there and be told that Syrus needed to be present in order to be able to register or carryout my antenatal process. I strongly did not want Syrus to be involved in the process. I didn’t want him to be in the first place, and if the first hospital hadn’t insisted, I would have done it successfully without him, but their protocols would not be broken.“Damn hospitals and their bloody protocols,” I spat.It was po
Vivian’s POVI got scanned and registered for antenatal procedure right after my answer that Syrus was dead. A part of me began to feel guilty and uncomfortable about such a huge lie. This was the first time I was doing something as outrageous as this, and I felt almost terribly sick, but after I was able to successfully register, I felt less guilty and bad.After one of the nurses was done with attending to me and registering me, I went back to Ken’s office, because they had been asked to redirect me back to him after I was done.“How did it go?” He asked me after I entered into his office and sat down across from him.“It went well, thank you,” I responded.Then I noticed that he was staring at me with sympathetic and sad eyes. He did not have this look on his face before I went for the antenatal registration, and I suddenly began to feel uncomfortable.“How do you feel doing this alone?” Ken asked. “Um…” I cleared my throat and shift uncomfortably on my seat. I had no idea that h
Vivian’s POVI woke up a little later than usual. It wasn’t my off day, so that means I would have to go and wait tables. It was a good thing that Jane hadn’t shown up at my door. It was a huge relief.Also, Dan’s text message left me worried, even though I had turned off my phone right after without texting him back, or calling.“What could he have wanted to tell me?” I asked myself as I got dressed for work. There was absolutely nothing I wanted from my former place of work. He fired me without explanations and at the worst time of my life, so I wasn’t even interested in hearing what he had to say. There were a lot of wrong things happening at the moment, and now that I had found a place that felt discreet, safe and secure to me, I just did not want to deal with anything else in my life for now. Besides, talking to Dan might put me in the spot where I didn’t want to be; seen.I grabbed my new pair of Jean trousers, baggy t-shirt, tied my hair into a rough ponytail and hurried out of
Vivian’s POVAll through the day’s work, I kept thinking that Jane would show up, but she didn’t, which really got me worried and concerned, but I didn’t come to work with my phone; I never do, otherwise I would have called her to find out why she was absent.After the day’s work, I packed up all the tables and chairs, changed the sign to ‘close’, and sat down waiting for Lori and Leo. Both of them had been worried about Jane’s absence, but by late afternoon, they had gone somewhere together, and I didn’t want to retire to bed without seeing them.While I waited, a young giggling and happy couple sauntered into the coffee shop.“Hi, you work here, right?” The man, who seemed to be in his late twenties asked me.“Yes, but we are closed for the day,” I said.He then turned to his girlfriend who poured her lips in disappointment. “I told you they were closed, but you insisted on checking even after seeing the sign,” he teased her.“It’s your fault! If you hadn’t kept me up, we would’ve be
Vivian’s POV“I wasn’t thinking about anyone,” I insisted weakly.“And that is okay,” Leo said, nudging his wife. “We were just messing with you?” He assured me with a smile. The atmosphere became better all of a sudden. “Jane didn’t show up today?” Leo asked, worried.“No, she didn’t,” I told them. It was such a worrisome thing, coming from Jane.Leo and Lori were equally very worried. “I know she is a wild girl who doesn’t care much about anything else, but this is so unlike her. Jane has never missed a day before,” Lori said worriedly.I stood there staring at them, speechless, because I did not know what to say. Her absence had bugged me all day. In truth, the thing I missed about Jane was having someone else who shared the work with me rather than doing it all alone, because I never enjoyed being disturbed by her, especially during work hours.“Did she speak to you about not coming today?” Leo asked me.I shook my head. “No, she didn’t,” I answered.“Did you see her again afte
Vivian’s POVI definitely freaked out!I opened my mouth to scream; it was obvious that Jane had been murdered, and my first instinct had been to scream, but the picture on her made me stop. Ted’s face was there. Manny’s face was there. My face was there. The picture was taken a few months before I chose Syrus over my family, so we were all easily recognizable. If I screamed now, and the cops arrived, it would definitely put me in a more complicated situation. I stood there, scared, speechless, stunned, clueless.I should have acted faster, I know, but this was the absolute first time I was being in this situation and space. I was so dazed that I did not even realize that Ken had entered the room.“Heck!” He almost yelled.I turned to him with pleading eyes, asking him not to scream.“What happened here?” He asked.“I don’t know. I walked in and saw her this way,” I told Ken.“This is incriminating, Vivian. Is she still alive?” Ken asked. He could not exactly tell because I was block
Georgia’s POVGeorgia was in the theater for hours, after trusting the doctor to give her a complete face transformation; one that was completely different from her true face, beautiful of course, and also matched her body at the same time, and also paid with most of the money that she had stolen. After that, Georgia spent about three weeks in the hospital, recuperating. She still had some money left, so she used it to take care of herself and her basic needs.The first day that Georgia looked at her new face in the mirror, she had been so awed by what she saw that she could only say, “Wow.”That expression carried all the emotions that she felt. Indeed, money was the ruler of life. If Georgia hadn’t taken the risk of stealing that money, she would never have looked this beautiful. Her face and skin were alluring. As Georgia touched her face in the mirror, she felt as though she was touching the face of a star.Georgia’s insides tingled with delight.“If I looked like this in college
Georgia’s POVGeorgia continued to work as a cleaner, but she did not forget the words that the male client said to her. Every morning, before she left for her cleaning job, she would stay in front of her cracked mirror and look at her face. Georgia had the body, but just like the male client had said, Georgia began to believe that she was ugly.“This is why they treated me badly. This is why they never wanted to be my friend. This is why they called me all sorts of ugly names,” Georgia would tell herself, sadly touching her face.She had never thought that her face was the problem before now, and she secretly wished that she could be half as beautiful as Vivian or Belinda, her college roommates, or any other beautiful girl out there.More than ever before, Georgia wanted to be a star.She wanted to excel where her mother failed. She wanted the world to know her. “I bet she’s going back to the dungeon she came from and no one is going to hear from her again.”Those were the mean word
Georgia’s POVGeorgia had thought that the hostile reception she got from Belinda and Georgia would stop at that first acquaintance, but it got worse as she lived with them.“Get up, you dolt!” Belinda had tapped Georgia rudely.Georgia had slept really late, because Belinda and Vivian had stayed up almost all night dancing, talking, and giggling, and Georgia wasn’t one to sleep under such disturbances. Meanwhile, she had lived with the two cruel girls for the entire time they stayed in college, and neither of them knew her name. Every time Georgia attempted to tell them her name, they always cut her off or waved her off. They disliked her so much that they wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.“What?” Georgia had woken up, feeling groggy and sleepy. It wasn’t even up to 8am, and she still had an hour and thirty minutes to rest before getting set for class.“Is she up now?” Vivian asked as she played with her phone on the bed.“Well, the ugly frog is still sleeping as though she
Georgia’s POVGeorgia was just a young girl when she was miraculously granted admission into their city’s college. She had been ecstatic and joyous, because she never thought she would get it, especially without any help.Her mother was struggling with the heartbreak of being abandoned by Georgia’s father whom Georgia never got to meet, her failures as a model simply because she had a child, Georgia, and so she had become embittered, and a complete shadow of herself.Georgia had applied into college all by herself with the hopes of getting a degree, but her hope had dwindled when she didn’t get it initially, and she overheard that if she had someone, maybe a responsible parent to stand in for her, she might have gotten in. Georgia had been devastated, because she was desperate to leave her mother; her mother kept unleashing her anger and bitterness on Georgia, and she kept blaming her for being jilted by her lover and getting kicked off the modeling world.Georgia had almost screamed
Georgia’s POV“What are you doing here?” Belinda, shocked to see Georgia, asked worriedly.This was her work hour, and when she was told that someone important wanted to see her, she hadn’t known what to expect at all, but certainly not Georgia.Georgia smiled coyly, glad that she could still get this reaction out of Belinda. She was always happy to know that she always had an edge over Vivian and Belinda…always.“That is not a polite way to speak to an old enemy,” Georgia said.Belinda looked around, worried that anyone would hear them, even though they were speaking at a private corner in her office.“You shouldn’t have come here, Georgia,” Belinda said angrily. “You have done enough damage, and the least you could do is simply leave me alone. Do you know what would happen if I lost my job?” Belinda asked, deeply worried and irritated.She had always hated Georgia, but Belinda never knew that she could hate Georgia the way she did right now, especially after the havoc that Georgia h
Syrus’s POVSyrus had paid Anderson’s family a visit after the heartbreaking news of his passing. He had been thoroughly devastated by the news, especially because he didn’t get enough time with Anderson to tell him what he needed to know.“You died without explaining to me the issue with my parents, and what exactly to do with Ken,” Syrus said, as though Anderson was right in front of him. Syrus didn’t tell his mum, because he knew that she never liked the man, but he had stayed in his room and wept. That was the closest thing to a father that Syrus ever had, and it pained him deeply that he didn’t even give Anderson enough of his time. After Anderson fell ill and couldn’t continue working at the company, Syrus had simply never paid him a visit. Yes, he had been completely financially responsible for Anderson, but that had been it, and now, Syrus regretted it deeply. He wished his only time of visiting Anderson was the only time. He wished he had actually taken out time to visit And
Georgia’s POV“…your contract with this TV show is over.”Georgia kept hearing those words in her head as she headed out of the venue. She could not believe her ears. It was as though she was hearing a weird sound in her ears.“Just like that, they have kicked me out,” Georgia asked as she booked a cab. “I seriously need to get Syrus to buy me a bloody car, and fast!” Georgia said in between.She felt used and tossed like a piece of trash. She never knew about this policy about TV shows and their stars. All along, Georgia had simply thought that a contract was all she needed, but it was obvious that that wasn’t the case. “I should have done everything possible to keep Brenda there,” Georgia said to herself angrily.More realization began to dawn on her; as a star, one of the things about her career is that once one TV show drops a star, the others who had already signed a contract might likely also drop the star. Being in the business for this long had made Georgia realize that most
Georgia’s POVAfter Georgia managed to get Nancy out of her apartment by lying, as usual, she pondered on a lot of things.Somehow, deep inside, Georgia knew that if she did not take hold of things, Syrus and his family would find a way to get out of her hook. Regardless of what Georgia now knew about Syrus, she also could not neglect the fact that Syrus held some power and influence in the country. If it had been easy, Ken would have come out with the truth already. Georgia wasn’t stupid; she had been in the streets and playing this game for as long as she could possibly remember, and she knew that if one wasn’t careful, even she and Ken would not be able to take down Syrus.Besides, Georgia had no motive to run Syrus down; if she did, how would she get the life she had envisioned? Georgia was too invested in the family of Vale to begin her strategy all over again with another wealthy and influential family. She knew how the system worked, and if Georgia wasn’t careful, if she wasn’
Georgia’s POVThis was the first time that Georgia was standing right in front of Nancy and she was not just speechless, but she was also feeling uncomfortable. “Can I come in?” Nancy asked in an icy cold voice.Georgia cleared her throat and said, “Yes, of course.”Then she moved out of the way for Nancy to come in. Georgia could not stop wondering how Nancy managed to know where she now lived. She remembered that the last time they spoke, she hadn’t made mention of any house, and the fact that Nancy was right here, uninvited by Georgia and her look of displeasure was a clear enough indication that this wasn’t a case of peaceful visitation. Georgia watched Nancy enter slowly into the living room and looked around, and because Nancy’s back was back facing Georgia, she could not exactly tell Nancy’s reaction or emotions. Was she upset? Was she enraged? Was she aggravated? Georgia could not tell.“This is quite a lot,” Nancy said, her voice sounding bland.Georgia was almost tempted t